We think that diagnostic codes and the path through the medical maze we have constructed has a real track record when it comes to the mental health industry. Does it? We have more meds available than ever before but are those meds dealing with symptoms or actually treating causes? We have more kinds of mental health resources to choose from -- including online providers to non-profits -- than ever before. But the therapeutic arm of it all seems only there to bridge a crisis and not exactly to address the root of the problem. In the hospital ER, the most important question is whether or not the patient still seems to be an urgent threat to themselves or anyone else. If that standard is met, it is highly likely the individual will be sent home with a promise to find help with their current or a new provider. That often seems like the entire mental health industry -- bridging one crisis after another without actually fixing anything. I know I am being harsh but this is from the prospective of an insider. The avenues of hope for those I have dealt with most intimately were helped not by government or an agency of a health care provider but by non-traditional sources understaffed and underfunded but often doing incredible work. Actually fixing the problems or simply helping the wounded to be the walking wounded and not littering up the ERs of this world.
Therein lies the problem for a church with offers a religious version of therapy. Therein lies the problem for a God who offers therapy. Therein lies the problem of a therapeutic deism that replaces Christ and Him crucified. We have turned God into a vendor for our mental health industry, a God who is willing to listen to us, encourage us to make peace with our demons, be true to ourselves accepting who we are with all our warts, and smile our way through the crap as if it were all good. But the one thing that this God cannot do is actually save us, fix what ails us, and offer us something more than a reconciliation we have with what is wrong with us and around us. Imagine pretending that sin is not sin or death is not death. Is that all this therapeutic deity can offer us?
This God is, as Anthony Esolen reminds us, a smiley face deity who smiles with us through it all but has no legs to run to us or arms to lift us up. An emoji God who is little more than a cute picture. We need more than this kind of false god. We need a real God who can offer real help. We don't need a God to address symptoms but one who can reach into the core of what is wrong and offer us a remedy, a rescue, and a real redemption. That is why we got a God who came in flesh to have real arms and real legs to do something more than smile away the days of disappointment and despair. The therapeutic part of this is in reality no therapy at all and it just might appeal to us because we would rather have our hands held and be told lies than to hear the truth that saves.
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I have often thought about the relationship between human psychology, in all its complex variables, and our spirituality. Never mind that the first time I took a basic 3 credit course in Psychology 101 at a junior college during the summer of 1964 I dropped out of class midway. It was an evening class, I was 19, and often tired from working at the Produce Dept of our local supermarket during the day, keeping late nights, and the fatigue seemed overwhelming. Sometimes in class, I would be falling asleep during the professor’s lecture, knocking my book off the desk as I slumped wearily in my seat. Really quite embarrassing. I remember the stares from the prof and the quiet giggles from the students, as I picked up my books off the floor. I took the course again about a year later, and barely passed. Believe it or not, I managed to finally wake up and started getting A and B grades for want of disgust with getting an F in psychology. Still later, coming to Christ by the grace of God alone, I wondered how the psychological struggles of people with mental illnesses and unresolved conflicts and anxieties fitted into God’s salvation plan. We know we are saved by grace, and there is some free will and choice in our behavior and thought life, as well as our motivations and ability to retain God in our knowledge, and cling to Christ our savior. Yet, we see around us lost people encumbered by psychological maladies, deep seated in their consciousness, and so distraught and helpless to even know how to begin to approach God. The damaged goods of humanity sit on the edge and the sidelines of a faith they can’t seem to find. Perhaps, Christian psychologists and therapists are needed more than the neighborhood pastor to reach such despairing souls with the comfort of the Gospel of Grace. If anything, mental illnesses, both permanent and temporary, should make us even more appreciative of God’s provision for the lost and those who struggle to make sense of the world in spite of their own debilitating neurosis. In closing, we have to say that God saves more of these suffering people by grace than we might realize. He does this by His own mercy and compassion, and lifts them up. It is because of the Cross, not any works or testimonies or our own feeble ability to maintain our faith apart from Him. Soli Deo Gloria
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